The World Cup was quite memorable for a lot of us, apart from being the first final for Croatia, it had the most penalties of any world cup, and including that wonderful strike by Pavard which won the Best Goal Award, there were some absolute bangers in there. Germany however was among those who would look back at the tournament as a dark time. With their worst performance in nearly 80 years, the 2014 world cup champions couldn’t even go past the group stage. Criticism came from many in Germany and the football world, but perhaps it was Mesut Ozil who received the most backlash, so much so that he recently retired from international football.
The 5 time German Player of the Year was under media scrutiny for quite some time now. This was because of his picture with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his delay in “explaining” this action to the German media. Although, Ozil asserted that there was no political intent behind the picture, perhaps he got between the crossfire of bad relations between the two countries. The German government views its Turkish counterparts as antidemocratic while Turkey accuses Germany of harboring anti-Turkey terrorists. It was only in February of 2018 after all that Turkey released Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist accused of spreading anti-state propaganda, after pressure from Berlin. Thus, many Germans wanted Ozil to vindicate his German-ness perhaps.
But perhaps, there was an element of racism here too. Ozil claimed that he was German when the team lost and an immigrant when they lost. He also holds that he has been singled out when it comes to criticism despite poor performances from usual stars across the team such as Thomas Muller, Sami Khedira, and Joshua Kimmich. This isn’t something new in football, Ozil’s thoughts resonate with footballers such as Karim Benzema and Romelu Lukaku who felt they were French and Belgian when their team won but immigrants whenever they lost. Of course Ozil certainly was not ostracized by everyone involved in German football, Manager Joachim Low supported him and he also had sympathetic ears in the German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. At the same time, however, the German Football President Reinhard Grindel and Public Relations Manager Oliver Bierhoff criticized Ozil’s inclusion in the team. This criticism perhaps was misplaced because their reasoning started from the controversial picture and ended on his performances which is exactly the problem Ozil claims he faced: being German when the team wins and non-German when it loses.
It should be noticed that Ozil was not the only player involved in the picture, Manchester City player Ilkay Gundogan was also pictured. However, where Gundogan did give explanations, Ozil kept his silence on the matter, that is, until he gave an explanation in his retirement statement that he did not want to be targeted by the media in an immediate press conference and instead consulted with the German President and Reinhard Grindel and planned on releasing a joint statement with the German Football Association. Ozil’s postion was also different from Gundogan’s because Ozil has a much larger role in the national team than Gundogan so would have attracted more attention. Furthermore, as Ozil clarified in his recent statement, he wanted to stay true to his roots and pay his respects to the highest position in Turkish government rather than to give in to the trend of sour relations between the two countries. Therefore, the picture was never meant to have political meanings. Grindel’s public insistence on a statement from Ozil despite Ozil’s understanding with the Football Association, therefore, angered him. But, it was not this alone which contributed to Ozil’s decision. He had been subjected to abuse from fans as well as people in positions of power. The exact abuses, regretfully, cannot be published in this article. Not only this, but he had also received hate mail and phone calls to him and his family. Ozil’s father had said that he would have retired if he were in Ozil’s place, however Ozil still waited on making a decision. Seeing little support, however, maybe it should not come as a surprise to us that Ozil retired the way he did only at the age of 29.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs that racism and bad international relations permeate into the beautiful game of football. Although, the situation has improved, with fines being a usual punishment for racism between players, but there is no mechanism to protect players from racism and politics which transcend beyond just two players. Perhaps not in 2018, but it is hoped that we learn from this incident and prevent such instances in the future.